Month: October 2023

‘The Erin is I fear going to be a trouble to me’

H.M.S. Erin in dock at Invergordon.
Photograph: Naval History and Heritage Command NH 41762.

In Aidan Dodson’s new book on The Windfall Battleships he refers (page 23) to the battleship Erin:

Fuel stowage was, however, only two-thirds that of her British contemporaries, and difficult to access. As CinC Grand Fleet remarked to DNC:

The Erin is I fear going to be a trouble to me. She only has 1000 tons of coal that is available for steaming. The rest is athwart Engine Rooms & can’t be trimmed forward for real steaming. The nominal 2000 tons is a fraud. I am telling her to use oil whenever possible to help the coal out.

The source given is a letter of 19 September 1914 from Admiral Sir John Jellicoe in d’Eyncourt’s papers at the National Maritime Museum. The word ‘athwart’ is more likely ‘abreast’. Dodson leaves it at that, which is a shame, as it would be interesting to know if the Ship’s Covers at Woolwich provide more information on Erin‘s bunkerage. However, elsewhere in d’Eyncourt’s papers (I’m not saying where, this isn’t a research charity) is a 28 September minute from W. H. Gard, one of the Assistant Directors of Naval Construction:

d’Eyncourt embodied this in his reply to Jellicoe on 29 September, which he also showed to Rear-Admiral Frederick Tudor, the Third Sea Lord:

Lesson to be learned? There are always two sides to a story.

‘The youngest of that rank’

Jack Gwillim as Captain Edward Parry in The Battle of the River Plate (1956).

When the actor Jack Gwillim died in 2001 a couple of obituaries mentioned his service in the Royal Navy prior to his career on stage and screen. The Telegraph wrote that ‘In 1946 he was invalided out of the Navy as a commander, having been the youngest of that rank at the time of his promotion.’ The Guardian declaimed ‘In 1946, he was invalided out of the service with arthritis while a commander, the youngest of that rank at the time of his promotion.’

There are two grave errors in this, one more serious than the other. Gwillim was never a Commander per se, he was a Commander (S), which matters in the days before the General List of the 1950s. He had joined the Navy as a Paymaster Cadet and served in the Accountant Branch. Until 1944 all its ranks were prefixed ‘Paymaster’, at which point they were suffixed (S), to distinguish them from their Executive Branch counterparts.

The other error is fascinating. Gwillim was promoted to the rank of Commander (S) on 30 June 1945 at the age of 35 years 6 months 15 days. Seven other Lieutenant-Commanders (S) were promoted in the same batch. I have been able to find the dates of birth of five of those officers. Four of them were born in 1910, and therefore younger than Gwillim! Where do these fake facts come from? The similarity of the Telegraph and Guardian‘s claims shows that no one thought once to check it.